I used to joke that the area I represent as a member of Hampshire County Council, Totton South & Marchwood has just about everything one could imagine that might cause problems for people, except for a nuclear waste facility.

We have very high levels of HGV traffic, much of which visits the very large Marchwood Industrial Estate. We have a newly constructed gas-fired power station, an Energy from Waste facility (The Dome).,We have a waste transfer station, a household waste recycling centre, a sewerage works, the largest military port in the country, ongoing quarry activity, the training facilities for Southampton Football Club.

I enjoy good relations with the people running all these facilities and I have experienced them making efforts to minimise the impact of their operations. However, despite the collective efforts of them all, there is no doubt that there is a significant impact on the quality of life enjoyed by the residents in my area.

I have battled, with very little success, to restrain the increasing volumes of HGV traffic in the area. The problem here is that the law gives no powers to elected Councillors like myself to decide how much traffic is reasonable. In trying to achieve a fairer balance, I have been consistently let down by the Regulatory Committee of Hampshire County Council, the Traffic Commissioner and planners at New Forest District Council.

Imagine how I feel whenever the less than satisfactory bus service that travels through the village is threatened by cuts, or I am told that there is no money available to construct a safe means of cycling and walking out of the village to neighbouring towns?

Incredibly, we are now being asked to accept the possibility of radio active materials being transported along our road network, a 350 mile journey from Sellafield, for processing further down the Waterside.

I think it entirely unreasonable that such materials should be transported so far, let alone into the New Forest district.

Further more, I think it about time that Hampshire County Council and Southampton City Council recognised the burden that the village of Marchwood shoulders, for the wider community benefit. An official acknowledgment would be a good start, followed by a financial commitment to help provide some badly needed facilities.

Should Hampshire County Council get into the business of dealing with waste from outside the County? It is a reasonable question and there are probably some good reasons for doing so. However, I can also think of some significant disadvantages.

I have been battling to find out what the authority has been getting up to when it comes to disposing of our waste. I have some very serious concerns that decisions are being taken without the chance for the public to have a say. A lot of my fellow council members also feel that we have been misled or kept in the dark.

Alarm bells starting ringing with me when I noticed that an application was being made to vary the condition that would allow the Marchwood Energy Recovery Facility (The Dome) to handle waste brought in from outside Hampshire. Amazingly, there were initially no objections to this from any other authority or individual. Officers implied I was wasting their time raising an objection as similar conditions had already been agreed by officers under “delegated authority” at the two other Energy Recovery Facilities in Hampshire.

Have you been asked whether you think it a good idea for Hampshire to start processing waste in the County? If you live near one of these plants, or near a busy road, are you likely to support the increased HGV movements that will inevitably lead from this stealthy change of policy?

I have twice found myself making speeches to the Regulatory Committee of Hampshire County Council, pointing out that there is, in fact, no policy that states the authority will import waste from other Counties, that to do so would seriously harm areas like Marchwood and Totton, already incredibly stressed by high volumes of HGV traffic, where there have been fatal accidents.

Possibly the fact that members voted in favour of allowing a condition was inevitable, given the fact that Hampshire County Council had already issued an official press release stating what a very good thing this was. This means that members could not weigh up the issues objectively, with an open mind – something they are legally obliged to do.

I know that there are plans to increase the handling capacity of the Marchwood ERF. Consultants have been appointed to conduct a feasibility study. It’s all under wraps and Hampshire County Council does not want you to know about it. Agreeing to change the condition that permits the operators to process waste from outside the County is part of a wider picture.

I am absolutely determined to see no further growth of HGV movements in the area I represent. That is why I am busy objecting to everything. I’m considering a judicial review of the decision taken. I have made a Freedom of Information request in an effort to discover the plans for the Marchwood ERF. I think all of the people who are concerned about highway safety, those that are worried about air quality issues and those that suffer sleepless nights from HGV noise and vibration, expect this from me.

The issue of whether or not fluoride is added to tap water is of huge significance. It is about how we wish to order society. It is a fundamental test. Do we live in a democracy or have we given up on the idea?

I have always entertained the notion that important decisions should be made by those that we elect. If those who exercise power over us fail to deliver, we can get rid of them.

I had thought that a consultation was an exercise in finding out what people think. I didn’t expect that the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) undertaking a consultation would ever expect to get away with promoting only one side of an argument.

Worse still, when it was clear that most people expressing an opinion were against the proposals, they decided to go ahead anyway. Now, they are busy telling us that their wishes will prevail, no matter what a future further ballot, opinion poll or referendum might say.

It seems that our government gave the SHA the power to determine this issue. The fact that only one of the twelve unelected board members lives in the area to receive the fluoride makes a mockery of the assurance from Prime Minister Gordon Brown that local people will decide.

I am a member of a Town Council, a District Council and Hampshire County Council. On all three levels of government we debated the issue. I and other elected Councillors, who represent thousands of people, decided that we should not support adding fluoride to tap water. The SHA have given no greater weighting to this than they would have to any individual making a view known.
Where detailed questions and concerns have been raised about the proposals, the SHA have often failed to address them.

The consultation process was flawed and will be challenged. The proposals themselves may in fact be illegal. The fact that the water companies have required an absolute indemnity from any legal claims arising from fluoride added to tap water, might just offer a clue about the significance of the risk.

You and I, the taxpayer, are picking up the bill for this sham of a consultation. You will also be paying for the fluoride to be added to tap water. You will in turn be picking up the bill for any legal costs and successful claims made by individuals demonstrating harm from fluoride in the tap water.

Can we tolerate this? Absolutely not! Join groups like “Hampshire Against Fluoride”, write to your MP’s, send notice that you will refuse to pay for tap water that has fluoride added to it. The will of the people must prevail.

Anyone following the story of the slippery floor saga, involving New Forest District Council and a High Court battle will have been pretty shocked that it has cost local taxpayers up to £350,000. It works out at about £5 per taxpayer in the New Forest district.

I doubt whether this matter would have reached public attention had I not been encouraged by the Daily Echo “It’s your Money Campaign” to insist that the case be given proper scrutiny. I started off as a lone voice, calling for information about a large legal bill. I had no idea then of the scale of the full losses.

Obviously, the whole matter is a major embarrassment to the Council Leader and his conservative colleagues. I wasn’t unduly surprised that he has offered an apology, as has the Chief Executive. I’m very sure they are sorry. I’m still mystified as to why they pursued the case when they had known that their own cleaning systems were not right, including using the wrong sort of polish.

The case has uncovered a number of other issues that urgently need addressing. These include poor communication between different departments, no one person taking ownership of the case, junior staff being poorly supported, a lack of preparation and robust examination of our own evidence, an arrogant unwillingness to settle matters without lawyers.

My group have yet to decide what further action might be necessary to rectify matters. The media interest in the internal scrutiny has been useful in persuading the ruling group that they will have to reform procedures.

An independent inquiry might offer more insight into why such large sums of public money can be gambled by just one or two leading council members, without the knowledge of the rest of us. It might also be able to offer more detailed information as to who decided what, whether it was council officers or council members driving matters.

On the other hand, an independent inquiry will cost money. Possibly, it might be better to allow voters to pass judgement on whether these are the best people to be guardians of the public purse.

In my View ..... By County Councillor David Harrison

Fluoridation

I take entirely the opposite view of Dr Steve George who writes in support of adding fluoride to our tap water.

There may well be some scare stories attached to the issue. Highly qualified experts on both sides hold different views as to whether fluoride might be responsible for increased rates of cancer, decreases in IQ, Alzheimer’s, thyroid disorders. All I know is that the precautionary principle should apply. If there is any doubt about the long term impact, leave it out.

Do the public want it? The answer is obviously No! Few people that I speak to are in favour. Polls suggest that over 70 % are against. In my experience, when all the facts are put to people, those against become 95%. Many people remember the disaster in Cornwall, now some years ago, when hundreds of people became poisoned by a wrong dosage put into the water supply.
Having large quantities of this industrial waste product stored anywhere near our water supplies is an accident waiting to happen and certainly a new, unwanted security risk.

What right do these health experts have to instruct the water companies to add fluoride to our water? Well, not one of them was elected to their post. Do they live in the area? No. A Freedom of Information request has revealed that only one of the twelve board members actually lives in the area that is to receive this unwanted product in our water.

When Gordon Brown visited Southampton with his Cabinet he was asked about fluoride. He said “It’s up to local people to decide”. How is this letting local people decide? Did they properly consult before reaching their decision? No. The process they called a consultation was in fact a promotion in favour of fluoride. There was no real attempt to hide the fact that they had already made up their minds before the sham consultation, evidenced by thousands of pounds of taxpayer’s money spent on literature telling us how good fluoride is.

Will it do what it is intended to? I don’t think so. The target group are young children. Few drink much tap water but they do drink plenty of fizzy drinks and eat sweets. The remedy is brushing teeth – that is a safe and effective means of tackling the problem, with no risk to anyone else!

I think the Daily Echo is really onto something with the continuing “It’s my money” campaign.

I have long suspected that there is a huge amount of wastage when it comes to spending public money. In some cases, it is central government that is to blame. Obviously, you can take a view on whether the £billions spent on the war in Iraq were worthwhile. Most people would say not. However, both Labour and Conservative politicians voted in favour. The true cost of this is not only measured in financial terms.

Closer to home, I have been spending a lot of my time as a Councillor, finding examples of public money wasted. It is on a fairly grand scale!

I have instigated a full scrutiny into the circumstances that led up to New Forest District Council losing a legal case with a flooring company that finished in the High Court. I must not pre-judge the investigation but it seems that various slip ups on the part of councillors responsible for deciding to pursue the case have cost taxpayers anything between £100,000 and £200,000.

I have called for an independent inquiry into the Hythe Promenade scheme. It’s an excellent project, but a failure of a council member to monitor the project progress has led to an additional cost to the taxpayer of £135,000. Needless to say, the ruling conservative group are resisting my request.

Hampshire County Council, which makes much of an excellent rating it recently received, hasn’t performed well in Totton. The Rumbridge Street scheme took over a year longer than planned and has cost taxpayers £700,000 more than it should have done. The Conservative portfolio holder is refusing to hold an inquiry into what went wrong.

A while back, a District Council scheme to improve Lymington Quay went over budget by £70,000. Another scheme, to improve St.John’s Street car park in Hythe cost taxpayers an additional £85,000.

I wish I had the power to compel the Councillors responsible for monitoring all these projects to hold independent inquiries. The problem is that they might find the conclusions uncomfortable!

The bicycle is a fantastic invention, probably one that most of us take for granted and probably don’t utilise as much as we should.

The problem with bikes is that we often have to share the same space with vehicles large and small. It takes a brave, some might say foolhardy, person to cycle along a road frequented by Heavy Goods Vehicles.

One of the ways councils could help a lot of people enjoy a brighter, healthier future, whilst tackling the causes of climate change, would be to provide safe cycle routes.

In my home of Totton, there is a great example of this, called the Green Route, a wide, pleasant, traffic free route that snakes through the west of Totton that allows people to cycle in safety.

The significant thing about the Green Route is that it would never have been built without the use of developers’ contributions, (money taken from the house builders as a contribution towards community facilities).

Where there are no large housing developments, no proper cycle routes are being constructed unless a forward looking council is prepared to find the funding.

I’m deeply saddened that Hampshire County Council consistently fails to invest more in safe cycle routes. Some years ago, we were expecting a cycle route along the A36 Salisbury Road. What we actually got was some red paint markings on the road itself. This is the same stretch of tarmac used by HGV’s . You would think that a council holding over £180 million in reserves could do rather better than this.

In another part of my division, the village of Marchwood, I am hoping that it might be possible to construct safe cycle routes, linking the otherwise isolated village with Totton and Hythe. The Liberal Democrat amendment to the budget this year, would have started the ball rolling with £500,000 set aside for investment in cycle routes. Unfortunately, the ruling conservative group voted it down.

It is utterly pointless for politicians to pose as green, unless they are prepared to take decisions that improve matters. Investment now would also create jobs and help stimulate the economy. I shall keep battling away, hoping they will one day see sense.

In my View....

I’m strongly supportive of the Daily Echo “It’s Your Money” campaign, highlighting examples of public money being wasted.

On the County Council, our Leader, Ken Thornber, will no doubt be hoping that the storm following his creation of a 21 seat Senate will blow over before the County Council elections in June. Originally, it was going to cost £100,000, then £50,000 and now, in the face of fierce opposition, it seems the cost has been conveniently met within existing budgets.

As somebody who has to face an election every few years, I find it particularly annoying that I can have no say in what the Senate decides and yet there are six unelected members who can.

I guess we can all think of examples of road works that seem to have taken far longer than might reasonably be expected. However, Rumbridge Street in Totton seems to be something of a record breaker. I have lost count of the number of times it has been dug up, filled in and dug up again. Some serious mistakes have been made. I’m trying hard to convince the Conservative Council that they would do well to scrutinise what has happened and learn from their mistakes.

On the New Forest District Council, ever keen to describe itself as an excellent performer, news has just broken that it has lost a High Court judgement over a dispute with a specialist flooring company. This will cost local taxpayers well in excess of £100,000. I expect an uphill battle when it comes to asking them to look carefully at the judgement.

I thought we had a good basis of agreement for funding extra community policing in my home town. Accredited Community Safety Officers are generally acknowledged to be doing a great job. Unfortunately, the Conservatives on New Forest District Council have decided that they want to withdraw funding.

The slack has been taken up by my friends on the County Council, but I think possibly for a year, (until the elections are out of way). We may then lose our additional bobbies on the beat, crime & anti-social behaviour will rise and we will be looking at a more expensive option to deal with it. Sometimes, a regular investment in a much needed service, is a price well worth paying. To quote David Cameron, it’s like fixing the roof while the sun shines.